Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Qing Yang, Gengyuan Liu, Marco Casazza, Francesco Gonella, Zhifeng Yang
Summary: The study proposes three perspectives and approaches to assess biodiversity: biodiversity potential, biodiversity's contribution to human well-being, and the significance of local charismatic species to global biodiversity conservation.
ECOLOGICAL INDICATORS
(2021)
Editorial Material
Business
Kun-Huang Huarng, Jose Manuel Guaita-Martinez, Tiffany Hui- Kuang Yu
Summary: Research methods are crucial in shaping empirical results and theory construction. Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis identifies causal combinations leading to outcomes of interest. Previous studies have highlighted issues with bad practice in multiple regression analysis.
JOURNAL OF BUSINESS RESEARCH
(2021)
Article
Computer Science, Information Systems
Samuel Epstein
Summary: There is no computable, randomized method to produce a sample that does not contain outliers of a given computable probability measure P. Additionally, the minimum length of a program that computes a complete extension of a binary predicate gamma is bounded by the size of the domain of gamma and the information it has with the halting sequence.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INFORMATION THEORY
(2021)
Article
Ecology
Pablo Moisset de Espanes, Rodrigo Ramos-Jiliberto, Jose A. Soto
Summary: Ecological theory emphasizes the importance of species diversity for ecosystem functioning and its services. The concept of order-invariance is proposed and tested in ecological network models, leading to a call for revisiting previous research theories.
Review
Environmental Studies
Mattia Damiani, Taija Sinkko, Carla Caldeira, Davide Tosches, Marine Robuchon, Serenella Sala
Summary: Global biodiversity is declining rapidly, and halting this loss is a crucial challenge for humanity. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methods can be used to assess the impact of products and organizations on biodiversity, but there is currently no method that adequately accounts for all the different pressures on biodiversity. Future development of biodiversity impact assessment should focus on improving coverage of drivers of biodiversity loss, increasing ecosystem and taxonomic coverage, including assessment of ecosystem services, and developing robust indicators for essential biodiversity aspects.
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT REVIEW
(2023)
Editorial Material
Medicine, General & Internal
Megan Lane, Anna R. Kirkland, Daphna Stroumsa
Summary: Proposed regulations from the Biden administration aim to establish a national standard for equal access to healthcare, regardless of gender identity.
NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Juan Lorite, Carlos Salazar-Mendias, Roza Pawlak, Eva Maria Canadas
Summary: Overgrazing is a significant threat to biodiversity, especially in the Mediterranean region, and fencing is a common tool used for conservation. While fences can have advantages such as quick and intuitive effects, there can also be disadvantages for both habitat and species. The effectiveness of fencing in conservation varies among different species and populations, highlighting the importance of a case-by-case evaluation.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2021)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Michael R. Willig, Steven J. Presley, Brian T. Klingbeil, Evsey Kosman, Tao Zhang, Samuel M. Scheiner
Summary: A key element of conservation action involves the incorporation of sites into networks of protected areas. Historically, most network-creation strategies have been based on considerations of species richness and site complementarity. Nonetheless, phylogenetic or functional biodiversity may be more critical to the maintenance of ecosystem resilience or functioning than is the number of species.
BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Pavel R. Soukup, Joacim Naslund, Johan Hojesjo, David S. Boukal
Summary: Habitat complexity influences aquatic ecosystems at multiple levels but there are research gaps and limitations hindering a full synthesis of its effects. High-resolution studies and consideration of ecological feedback are needed to better understand the role of habitat complexity in aquatic communities and ecosystems. Future research should focus on non-linear responses and incorporate multi-level experiments and monitoring to improve our knowledge in this area.
WILEY INTERDISCIPLINARY REVIEWS-WATER
(2022)
Article
Physics, Multidisciplinary
Weijie Zhou, Hanxu Hou
Summary: This paper introduces two existing decoding methods and three modified decoding methods for Blaum-Roth codes, which have lower decoding complexity than the existing ones.
Article
Green & Sustainable Science & Technology
Mariagiulia Mariani, Francois Casabianca, Claire Cerdan, Iuri Peri
Summary: This paper compares two types of Origin Food Schemes (OFS), Geographical Indications and Slow Food Presidia, to explore their commonalities and differences in relation to cultural biodiversity. Through ethnographic findings from case studies in France, Italy, and Morocco, it is found that OFS have the potential to defend cultural biodiversity and contribute to sustainable development by mobilizing collective and context-dependent knowledge and practices.
Article
Biology
Mark C. Urban, Justin M. J. Travis, Damaris Zurell, Patrick L. Thompson, Nicholas W. Synes, Alice Scarpa, Pedro R. Peres-Neto, Anne-Kathleen Malchow, Patrick M. A. James, Dominique Gravel, Luc De Meester, Calum Brown, Greta Bocedi, Cecile H. Albert, Andrew Gonzalez, Andrew P. Hendry
Summary: Time is running out to limit further devastating losses of biodiversity and nature's contributions to humans. Addressing this crisis requires accurate predictions about which species and ecosystems are most at risk to ensure efficient use of limited conservation and management resources. Existing biodiversity projection models have gaps that need to be addressed to create a universal biodiversity modeling platform.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Mike Kestemont, Folgert Karsdorp, Elisabeth de Bruijn, Matthew Driscoll, Katarzyna A. Kapitan, Padraig O. Machain, Daniel Sawyer, Remco Sleiderink, Anne Chao
Summary: The study of ancient cultures is hindered by incomplete material artifact survival, leading to underestimation of cultural diversity in historic societies. Without correcting this bias, the loss of narratives from medieval Europe may be underestimated. Similarly, the original evenness of cultural populations plays a crucial role in the stability of these assemblages in the face of immaterial loss.
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
James G. C. Ball, Mark A. Burgman, Elizabeth D. Goldman, Janeth Lessmann
Summary: The study found that by expanding oil and mineral extraction into tropical forests, there is a risk to global biodiversity. By optimizing the protection of biodiversity and economic revenues, a balance can be achieved in valuable regions. Sacrificing a small percentage of annual oil profits can establish a protected area network that retains a significant portion of species and ecosystems, allowing for cost-effective conservation measures.
CONSERVATION BIOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Public, Environmental & Occupational Health
Cecilia Tomori
Summary: Recent research has shown that breastfeeding is important for overall health, but the lack of investment in supporting breastfeeding according to World Health Organization recommendations poses a threat to its protective effects. Western media narratives often overlook the significance of breastfeeding, hindering efforts to allocate sufficient resources and enact policy changes. Delayed action disproportionately affects disadvantaged communities. It is crucial to reframe the narrative, recognize the importance of breastfeeding, and address attempts to undermine it.
FRONTIERS IN PUBLIC HEALTH
(2023)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Pierre Gauzere, Benjamin Blonder, Pierre Denelle, Bertrand Fournier, Matthias Grenie, Leo Delalandre, Tamara Munkemuller, Francois Munoz, Cyrille Violle, Wilfried Thuiller
Summary: In addition to local species abundance, functional trait distinctiveness of species is now recognized as a key driver of community dynamics and ecosystem functioning. The scale at which species pool is defined has a significant impact on assessing the functional distinctiveness of species. Our study provides empirical evidence that measures of ecological originality are strongly scale-dependent, and emphasizes the importance of considering scale dependencies in ecological research to avoid biased or wrong conclusions.
Article
Ecology
Nuria Catalan, Ruben del Campo, Matthew Talluto, Clara Mendoza-Lera, Giulia Grandi, Susana Bernal, Daniel von Schiller, Gabriel Singer, Enrico Bertuzzo
Summary: Streams and rivers act as bioreactors processing large quantities of particulate organic matter. Climate change impacts the flow regime, affecting the decomposition and transport of organic matter. This study explored the consequences of lateral hydrological contraction on the decomposition and transport of organic matter in river networks.
Article
Ecology
Maria Joao Paul, Dan Rosauer, Pedro Tarroso, Guillermo Velo-Anton, Silvia B. Carvalho
Summary: Understanding the drivers of biodiversity patterns is crucial, and this study aims to identify if global-scale drivers of phylogenetic diversity and endemism are also predictive at regional scales using Iberian amphibians as a case study. The results show that water-energy availability and historical climate instability are important drivers of amphibian diversity in Iberia, but the strength of these predictors is weaker at the regional scale compared to the global scale.
ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Francois Munoz, Christopher A. Klausmeier, Pierre Gauzere, Gaurav Kandlikar, Elena Litchman, Nicolas Mouquet, Annette Ostling, Wilfried Thuiller, Adam C. Algar, Arnaud Auber, Marc W. Cadotte, Leo Delalandre, Pierre Denelle, Brian J. Enquist, Claire Fortunel, Matthias Grenie, Nicolas Loiseau, Lucie Mahaut, Anthony Maire, David Mouillot, Catalina Pimiento, Cyrille Violle, Nathan J. B. Kraft
Summary: Recent work has demonstrated that evaluating the distinctiveness of functional traits, which is the average trait distance of a species to other species in a community, can provide valuable insights into the dynamics of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. However, the underlying ecological mechanisms that drive the emergence and persistence of functionally distinct species are not well understood. In this study, we address this issue by considering a heterogeneous fitness landscape, where functional dimensions encompass peaks that represent trait combinations resulting in positive population growth rates in a community. We identify four ecological cases that contribute to the emergence and persistence of functionally distinct species and provide examples and guidelines to distinguish between them. Additionally, we explore how stochastic dispersal limitation can lead to functional distinctiveness. Our framework offers a novel perspective on the relationship between fitness landscape heterogeneity and the functional composition of ecological assemblages.
Article
Ecology
Billur Bektas, Wilfried Thuiller, Julien Renaud, Maya Gueguen, Irene Calderon-Sanou, Jean-Gabriel Valay, Marie-Pascale Colace, Tamara Munkemueller
Summary: We propose a novel framework that combines spatially explicit sampling, plant trait information, and a warming experiment to study plant community re-assembly during climate warming. Our framework separates the signals of environmental filtering and competition by considering spatial distance between individuals. In an elevational transplant experiment in the French Alps, we found common signals of environmental filtering and competition in all communities, with stronger environmental filtering in alpine communities and dominance of symmetrical competition in control and warmed alpine communities.
Article
Ecology
Vanessa Cutts, Dagmar M. Hanz, Martha Paola Barajas-Barbosa, Franziska Schrodt, Manuel J. Steinbauer, Carl Beierkuhnlein, Pierre Denelle, Jose Maria Fernandez-Palacios, Pierre Gauzere, Matthias Grenie, Severin D. H. Irl, Nathan Kraft, Holger Kreft, Brian Maitner, Francois Munoz, Wilfried Thuiller, Cyrille Violle, Patrick Weigelt, Richard Field, Adam C. Algar
Summary: Current models of island biogeography treat endemic and non-endemic species as if they were functionally equivalent, focussing primarily on species richness. Thus, the functional composition of island biotas in relation to island biogeographical variables remains largely unknown.
Article
Ecology
Zdenka Lososova, Irena Axmanova, Milan Chytry, Gabriele Midolo, Sylvain Abdulhak, Dirk Nikolaus Karger, Julien Renaud, Jeremie Van Es, Pascal Vittoz, Wilfried Thuiller
Summary: This study compiled a comprehensive dataset of seed dispersal distance classes and predominant dispersal modes for most European vascular plants. The seed dispersal dataset can be used in functional biogeography, dynamic vegetation modelling, and ecological studies at local to continental scales.
GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND BIOGEOGRAPHY
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Lucie Mahaut, Philippe Choler, Pierre Denelle, Eric Garnier, Wilfried Thuiller, Jens Kattge, Servane Lemauviel-Lavenant, Sandra Lavorel, Francois Munoz, Delphine Renard, Josep M. Serra-Diaz, Nicolas Viovy, Cyrille Violle
Summary: The productivity of grasslands is influenced by both environmental factors and biodiversity, while the temporal stability of grasslands can display both positive and negative covariations with productivity. It is crucial to consider the multiple components of stability and the interaction between environment and biodiversity for sustainable grassland management.
GLOBAL ECOLOGY AND BIOGEOGRAPHY
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Marc Ohlmann, Catherine Matias, Giovanni Poggiato, Stephane Dray, Wilfried Thuiller, Vincent Miele
Summary: Separating the effects of environmental factors and interspecific interactions on species distributions has been a major challenge in community ecology. A new statistical model called ELGRIN has been developed to address this challenge by combining knowledge on interspecific interactions, environmental data, and species occurrences. The model has been successfully tested on simulated and empirical data, and applied to vertebrate trophic networks in the European Alps. It has been found that factors such as altitude, species richness, and connectance significantly influence the overall effect of biotic interactions on species distributions.
ECOLOGICAL MODELLING
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Nicolas Le Guillarme, Wilfried Thuiller
Summary: This paper presents a practical approach to constructing a biodiversity knowledge graph from heterogeneous and distributed data sources, and shows how information can be retrieved from the graph to support multi-trophic studies.
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF SOIL BIOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Franz Essl, Adrian Garcia-Rodriguez, Bernd Lenzner, Jake M. Alexander, Cesar Capinha, Pierre Gauzere, Antoine Guisan, Ingolf Kuehn, Jonathan Lenoir, David M. Richardson, Sabine B. Rumpf, Jens-Christian Svenning, Wilfried Thuiller, Damaris Zurell, Stefan Dullinger
Summary: The rapid environmental changes in the Anthropocene era have caused shifts in species' spatial distributions, with lagged responses leading to disequilibrium states. The effects of different types of environmental change and time lags on species responses have not been adequately explored, which has implications for biodiversity assessments, scenarios, and models, thus impacting policymaking and conservation science. This perspective piece examines lagged species responses to environmental change and discusses ways to improve the calibration of species distribution models (SDMs) to account for time lags and enhance biodiversity science and policy.
JOURNAL OF BIOGEOGRAPHY
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Gabrielle Deschamps, Giovanni Poggiato, Philipp Brun, Clovis Galiez, Wilfried Thuiller
Summary: Directly modeling community-level indices provides more accurate spatial predictions and avoids over-prediction of species compared to the predict-first approach.
METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Trishna Dutta, Marta De Barba, Nuria Selva, Ancuta Cotovelea Fedorca, Luigi Maiorano, Wilfried Thuiller, Andreas Zedrosser, Johannes Signer, Femke Pflueger, Shane Frank, Pablo M. Lucas, Niko Balkenhol
Summary: Connected landscapes can enhance the effectiveness of protected areas by promoting movement and gene flow between populations, thus increasing species persistence in fragmented habitats. This study develops a quantitative method to identify connectivity umbrellas at multiple scales and demonstrates its application to the large mammal community in continental Europe. The results show that the number, identity, and attributes of connectivity umbrellas are influenced by spatial scale and human influence on the landscape.
FRONTIERS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Yue Dou, Cecilia Zagaria, Louise O'Connor, Wilfried Thuiller, Peter H. Verburg
Summary: This study uses a novel scenario approach to assess the various ways in which biodiversity targets can be achieved. The results show that meeting these targets will result in significant changes to Europe's land systems, with different impacts in different regions. These simulations go beyond existing methods and can facilitate constructive dialogue and consensus-building.
GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE-HUMAN AND POLICY DIMENSIONS
(2023)
Article
Soil Science
Simone Giachello, Isabel Cantera, Alexis Carteron, Silvio Marta, Cristina Cipriano, Alessia Guerrieri, Wilfried Thuiller, Gentile Francesco Ficetola
Summary: Protists are important in soil communities but their functional diversity is not well understood. This study proposes a functional framework for soil protists and applies it to a global dataset. The results reveal different nutritional and habitat preferences among soil protists. The framework can be used to estimate functional diversity and analyze food webs.
SOIL BIOLOGY & BIOCHEMISTRY
(2023)
